As is known, a front-loading home laundry washing machine generally comprises: a substantially parallelepiped-shaped outer boxlike casing structured for resting on the floor; a substantially horizontally-oriented and approximately cylindrical washing tub which is usually suspended in floating manner inside the casing, with the mouth directly facing a laundry loading/unloading through opening realized in the front wall of the casing; a substantially cylindrical, cup-shaped rotatable drum structured for housing the laundry to be washed, and which is fitted inside the washing tub with the concavity facing the laundry loading/unloading opening, and is supported by the washing tub in axially rotatable manner so as to be able to freely rotate inside the washing tub about its substantially horizontally-oriented, longitudinal axis; a substantially cylindrical, elastically-deformable bellows which watertight connects the front mouth of the washing tub to the laundry loading/unloading opening formed in the front wall of the casing; a porthole door which is hinged to the front wall of the casing to rotate to and from a closing position in which the door closes the laundry loading/unloading opening in the front wall of the casing for watertight sealing the washing tub; and an electrically-powered motor assembly which is structured for driving into rotation the rotatable drum about its longitudinal axis inside the washing tub.
The front-loading home laundry washing machine moreover comprises: a detergent dispenser which is located inside the boxlike casing and is structured for selectively feeding into the washing tub, according to the washing cycle manually selected by the user, a given amount of detergent, softener and/or other washing agent suitably mixed with fresh water arriving from the water mains; and finally a fresh-water supply circuit which is structured for selectively drawing fresh water from the water mains according to the washing cycle manually-selected by the user, and channeling said fresh water to the detergent dispenser or directly to the washing tub.
In most of the front-loading laundry washing machines currently on the market, the detergent dispenser generally comprises a detergent drawer which is fitted/inserted in manually extractable manner into a corresponding, substantially basin-shaped, drawer housing whose entrance is located on front wall of the casing, above the laundry loading/unloading opening. The detergent drawer is moreover divided into a number of detergent compartments each structured for being manually fillable with an amount of detergent, softener or other washing agent sufficient to perform a single washing cycle, and the detergent dispenser furthermore comprises a drawer flush circuit which is connected to the fresh-water supply circuit and is structured for selectively pouring, when the detergent drawer is completely fitted/inserted into the drawer housing, a shower of water droplets directly into any one of the detergent compartments of the detergent drawer, so as to selectively flush the detergent, softener or other washing agent out of the same detergent compartment and down onto the bottom of the drawer housing. The mixture of water and detergent, softener or other washing agent afterwards flows into the washing tub via a drain duct that branches off from the bottom of the drawer housing.
The drawer flush circuit in turn basically consists in a plate-like water delivery member which is structured to form the upper lid or cover of the basin-shaped drawer housing, so as to be located immediately above the detergent drawer when the latter is completely inserted/recessed into the same drawer housing, and is directly connected to the fresh-water supply circuit for receiving the fresh water of the water mains. The plate-like water delivery member is moreover provided with a number of shower-making portions, each of which is vertically aligned to a corresponding detergent compartment of the detergent drawer and is structured for feeding a shower of water droplets by gravity into the detergent compartment located immediately beneath, and internally accommodates a rotatable flow diverter which is interposed between the water inlet of the plate-like water delivery member and a number of internal water channels each ending into a corresponding shower-making portion of the plate-like water delivery member. The rotatable flow diverter is structured to selectively and alternatively channel the fresh water arriving from the fresh-water supply circuit towards any one of the internal water channels of the water delivery member.
The drawer flush circuit furthermore comprises a small electrically-operated motor assembly which is generally attached on a side of the plate-like water delivery member, and is mechanically connected to the rotatable flow diverter for controlling the angular position of the flow diverter.
EP2562303 discloses a drawer flush circuit wherein the pivot shaft of the rotatable flow diverter is mechanically connected to the electric motor assembly via a series of toothed wheels housed inside a separate gear case attached to the upper face of the plate-like water delivery member.
Unluckily this kind of drawer flush circuit is extremely difficult to be used in the new laundry washing machines provided with an internal water softening unit that uses ion-exchange resins to restrain calcium and magnesium ions (Ca++ and Mg++) dissolved in the tap water channeled to the washing tub, and brine (i.e. salt water) to periodically regenerate these ion-exchange resins. A front-loading laundry washing machine having an internal water softening unit of the type referred above is disclosed in W02013/160211.